


December

by orphan_account



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Fluff, HQ Secret Santa 2018, M/M, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 16:42:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17145350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Winter had arrived in Tokyo suddenly, and it had stayed.





	December

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lavendori](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavendori/gifts).



Winter had arrived in Tokyo suddenly, and it had stayed. At night, when the mercury drops, the pavement develops a glittery sheen, and walking home after practice requires care and consideration. These are two concepts Akaashi is well-acquainted with, but he can’t, sadly, say the same for Bokuto. Three times this week he’s had to help Bokuto up from the ground, after gesticulating too wildly, or moving too quickly, or attempting a backflip. Three times he’s had to reach out his suddenly-sweaty hand, grip tightly, and pull until they’re face to face again.

This is the last December that they’ll both be high school students. Maybe in a year’s time, Akaashi will be walking home alone again. Akaashi prods at this thought as he might prod at a swollen ankle. It feels more painful than he had expected. He has walked home alone before. But that had been before Bokuto had squeezed himself, messy and uninvited, into Akaashi’s orderly life, somewhere between the studying and the volleyball, and now the quiet feels different. It feels like an absence. 

When Akaashi thinks back to his first year, he remembers Bokuto as a whirlwind of enthusiasm, wrapped up in a skinny boy entirely comprised of elbows and knees. He’s not sure he’d said more than a sentence to Bokuto until September, because there’d never been any space in Bokuto’s one-man chatter. But after the summer holidays, Bokuto had returned fitter, and more intense, and when their eyes had met from across the gym, Akaashi’s composure had slipped and smashed on the gymnasium floor, and he’s never been able to pick it up since. 

Falling in love with Bokuto had not been part of his plan, but he’d never planned on playing volleyball, either - not until the moment the ball had touched his palms for the first time, and he’d just known that he could not, now, knowingly live his life without playing it. His feelings for Bokuto feel just as inevitable, just as undeniable.   


He feels a certain weary pragmatism about the whole thing. So he’s fallen in love with Bokuto: it’s unfortunate, but it’s not something he can change. One day, perhaps the universe’s switches will flick again, and he’ll forget the exact colour of Bokuto’s eyes - they’ll just be brown. Akaashi just has to wait. That’s what he tells himself when his chest feels heavy like a waterlogged sponge, on the days when Bokuto’s smile is particularly wide, when his eyes are particularly golden. Wait it out, he tells himself, wait it out. 

Over a year later, he’s still waiting. 

*

After their final practice of the year, Akaashi and Bokuto walk home, as they have taken to doing. The moon is round and white. A volleyball in the sky, Akaashi thinks, in a moment of whimsy. Bokuto has been inspiring those moments more often. 

There’s a now-familiar skittering sound. ‘Oh, Akaashi! Again!’ Bokuto shouts from the direction of Akaashi’s ankles.

‘Please walk more carefully, Bokuto-san,’ Akaashi says, planting his feet firmly on his own less-slippery path. 

‘Yes, Akaashi!’ Bokuto shouts breathlessly, as he’s righted. ‘Am I clean?’ He fruitlessly attempts to turn his head 360 degrees in order to see his own back.

‘Yes,’ Akaashi lies, eyeing the dark brown mud-stain bleeding across Bokuto’s shoulder. 

‘Great!’ Bokuto spins around once, almost falling again, but keeps himself upright by sheer force of will. He shoots Akaashi a sheepish glance. In return, Akaashi sends his most severe expression. 

Bokuto is troublesome. He’s loud and indelicate. A comprehensive list of his flaws would fill several libraries. And Akaashi knows: he’s tried to catalogue them all. But then there is this: Bokuto is kind. Bokuto is honest. Bokuto is uncomplicatedly good. Bokuto is who he is, entirely and unreservedly, and Akaashi finds that… compelling. 

‘Hey,’ Bokuto says, suddenly. ‘Look.’ He reaches over, and Akaashi thinks for a dizzy moment that Bokuto is going to touch his face. But Bokuto’s hand lands clumsily on his head instead. Of course it does, Akaashi thinks, giddily.

‘Bokuto-san,’ he says, low and shaken. The moon is very bright. Bokuto’s hair looks so white. 

‘What? Sorry, Akaashi. But It’s snowing, Akaashi! There’s a snowflake in your hair. I crushed it though.’ He shows Akaashi his empty hand. 

Akaashi shakes his head a little to try and clear it. He looks up at the sky, and Bokuto is right, for once: flakes are falling in a gentle dance. ‘So it is,’ he murmurs. 

‘Wow! Do you think I can build a snowman? Will you build it with me? We can build Kuroo!’

‘I don’t think there’ll be enough snow. And one’s bad enough.’ 

Bokuto makes a small, disgruntled sound. ‘Well, we can build Komi. He’s small. Tiny!’ He pinches his fingers together. 

‘Not small enough, Bokuto-san.’ He hides a smile inside his scarf. 

‘Well, tomorrow, anyway,’ Bokuto says generously. ‘I’m cold, Akaashi.’ In a split-second, his face falls into cavernous despair. ‘I forgot how cold I am.’

‘You can’t have been that cold if you forgot about it,’ Akaashi says sternly, but he begins unwinding his scarf anyway. 

‘I am,’ Bokuto says mutinously. ‘I might die.’ He stops walking and folds his arms. Akaashi recognises the signs fluently: a Bokuto-style meltdown is imminent. 

Akaashi sighs. He removes the scarf from around his own neck and loops it around Bokuto’s. The wool is soft and warm, the same grey as the Fukurodani blazer. While Akaashi ties it around his neck, Bokuto stands very still, like a child, his eyes round and owlish, travelling slowly downwards along with the falling snow. Akaashi tries not to allow the stab of affection, but it happens anyway. 

‘You’re good at that,’ Bokuto says, ‘taking care of me.’ 

‘It will do you good to learn how to take care of yourself,’ Akaashi says, avoiding Bokuto’s gaze. 

‘While you’re here I don’t need to,’ Bokuto says, with the confidence of the gloriously ignorant. 

‘What about when you leave for college?’ Akaashi steps back, observing the scarf. He adjusts the knot so that it sits directly in the centre of Bokuto’s neck. 

Bokuto narrows his eyes. ‘Then I’ll learn in college, and not waste time on it now.’ Akaashi rolls his eyes, but lets him have it.

They begin walking again. Bokuto fiddles with the ends of Akaashi’s scarf, and hums Christmas carols to himself. ‘This scarf smells like you, Akaashi.’

‘Oh,’ Akaashi says, flustered, and leans forward to take it back, but Bokuto frowns and holds it tighter.

‘I like your smell,’ Bokuto says stoutly. ‘Don’t take it away.’ Akaashi - refusing to pontificate on what that might mean - feels a slight colour rise on his cheeks. He can pass it off as the weather, he thinks. He’s fumbles around for a safe subject to discuss, but Bokuto speaks before he finds one. 

‘What do you want for Christmas, Akaashi?’ 

Akaashi frowns. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it. I’d be glad to receive whatever people wanted to give me.’ 

Bokuto looks unimpressed with this answer. ‘Don’t you want a puppy?’

‘No.’

‘I always want a puppy,’ Bokuto says mournfully. ‘I ask for one every year.’ 

‘Puppies are hard work.’ Akaashi thinks privately how wise Bokuto’s parents are to not buy him one.

‘But you’d be used to that, Akaashi.’

‘It’s true, you’re a lot like a puppy.’

‘But you don’t need a puppy if you already have me,’ Bokuto says. He stops walking again. Akaashi wonders how long it’s going to take them to get to their respective homes. ‘Hey. I was thinking something.’ 

‘That’s never good.’ Akaashi slows his pace too, turning towards Bokuto. He feels mildly trepidatious. Bokuto’s face is full of the sort of fervour he usually only sees before and during matches - pink cheeks, bright eyes, jaw quivering slightly. 

‘No, listen,’ Bokuto starts, flapping his hands. ‘I was thinking something - good.’ 

‘That seems unlikely, but I’m listening.’

Bokuto opens his mouth, and abruptly closes it again. It’s unnatural, Akaashi thinks. He’s not sure that Bokuto has ever had a thought that he hasn’t immediately verbalised. 

‘I can’t say it,’ Bokuto says. ‘It’s too important.’

‘Important things are the kinds of things you should say the most,’ Akaashi says, thinking about all the important things he’s never going to tell Bokuto. 

The snow is coming down harder and faster. Akaashi looks away from Bokuto, lifting his head up towards the clouds. The stars are faint - they’re in Tokyo, after all - but he can make out two of the brightest. Snowflakes land on his face like little cold needles. He glances over to Bokuto, who is watching him, expression pinched and nervous. It’s another unnatural emotion to see on Bokuto’s face.   


‘Akaashi,’ Bokuto says, voice wobbling a little, and then he takes a deep breath and suddenly he’s very close - and Akaashi can see the little glistening drops on Bokuto’s face - snowflakes that never stood a chance against Bokuto’s unexplainable internal furnace. Akaashi bites his lip and looks at the cold, dark pavement. His heart is beating faster than, he thinks, it ever has before, and he’s powerless against it. 

Akaashi doesn’t know what he expects, but it’s not the sudden weight of Bokuto’s cold hand in his own. It’s not Bokuto squeezing Akaashi’s fingers too hard. He’d never dared to hope for anything approaching this, and for a moment he stands amongst the moon and the stars and the Tokyo hum, and is quietly, entirely overwhelmed. His mind dissolves into small, foggy pieces like dust - like snow. 

Akaashi squeezes back, and despite the December chill, it feels warmer than July. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hiiii Justine :D I'm your secret santa!! I hope this is wintery and fluffy enough :3 Sorry I couldn't figure out a way to shoehorn in Tsukki or Kags! x_x


End file.
